This special issue of the journal came after a HeLEX, Translation in Healthcare conference that has already been mentioned a number of times on this blog. This paper began as an idea from a workshop on the sustainability of biobanks jointly run by CLG Professors Dianne Nicol, Don Chalmers and from HeLEX, Professor Jane Kaye. Many of the authors attended that workshop, and others were invited to illustrate the global experience of biobanking, and important innovative ideas in the field.

In discussing the future of biobanking, the paper outlines the concept of a ‘walking biobank’, a much more interactive, ongoing and potentially cost effective model of biobanking. This is one of the exciting new concepts developing in the biobanking academic community, and the group discussed it at some length, particularly in the context of tightening of biobanking funding in a number of countries in the world.